Lisa Church told The Border Mail her eight-year-old daughter Sophie had made the discovery on Sunday night, after cutting up the fruit before eating it.

She had purchased the Oasis brand strawberries from Lavington Coles on Thursday last week.

“The kids wanted something to eat, and we'd had the strawberries in the fridge for a few days,” she said.

“We had bought them after the first story broke, but because they weren't the brands that had been named at the time.”

“Sophie started cutting up the strawberry and called out that she'd found the needle in there.”

Oasis brands strawberries were added to the list of contaminated brands last Saturday.

Mrs Church said both her daughters were aware of the story once it broke last week, and was thankful they had cut them up.

“I couldn't believe it – there it was sitting in the strawberry,” she said.

“We'd read about it, but here it is right in front of you.

“To think they could have eaten it is horrible.

“She (Sophie) knows about the story, she'd sliced it through the middle instead of length-ways and the knife wouldn't go all the way through.

“The pin would have been completely concealed otherwise.”

NSW Police held a press conference in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon to address the growing scandal, in which they acknowledged a report had been made to police in Albury.

Detective Superintendent Danny Doherty, from the robbery and serious crimes squad, said more than 20 reports of food contamination had been made across the state.

“NSW Police are continuing their investigation into food contamination in fruit,” he said.

“I'd like to remind the public to report any cases of contamination, to be vigilant and to exercise caution.

“Other incidents have occurred across NSW, these have been reported from Tweed heads down to Albury.”

Detective superintendent Doherty said food contamination was a serious crime, carrying a sentence of 10 years jail.

He also added that any copycat offenders or people who had self-contaminated their food would be fully investigated.

“In relation to the motivation for this crime, we still haven't confirmed any motivation or reason why a person would do this,” he said.

“All investigations are genuine.

“Any incidents of self-contamination or suspected copycat incidents have a deep impact on the industry, are very unhelpful to authorities and will be treated as food contamination, which is a serious offence which carries 10 years jail.

“You are still causing alarm and anxiety to the public, you are causing economic loss to the industry, creating hysteria and making it a perilous adventure to buy fruit at the supermarket and feed your family.”